The Bellman.
sell-out zone
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Housekeeping and some random stuff
First off, heartfelt thanks to Tony for keeping the page going while I was on the road. A lot of guest bloggers will disrupt the tone of a site, but I think you'll agree that Tony's light touch guaranteed that the blog kept a zwichenzuggy feel.
Blogging, both here and Bellmanwards, will probably be light for awhile. I can't abide dial-up, and haven't yet been able to reliably find time to hang out in wireless hotspots. Also, the best wireless access point in my pops' neighborhood is a Panera Bread franchise which charges nearly $4 for an americano.[1]
In Zwichenzug Culture Watch news, Grind is not nearly as good a skateboard movie as Lords of Dogtown. It's not even as good as a bootleg copy of The Search for Animal Chin with messed up sound. On the other hand, The Third Man is funnier than you'd expect and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, while terrible, isn't as bad as its reviews. Also, I'm not sure how I managed to avoid hearing it all these years, but Solo Monk is a great record with a sound I haven't heard from Monk before.
I like Amtrak well enough, but the delays can get to you. My train rolled into San Antonio at about 11 pm Thursday, just as the Spurs were winning the NBA championship at the arena next to the train station. My connection was supposed to leave the station at 1 am Friday, but didn't arrive until nearly 8 am, and then didn't leave the station for another two hours. The upshot was that I sort of slept on a wooden bench in the train station, which would have been fine except that one woman decided that she didn't want to sleep in the train station and stayed awake by encouraging her three year old daughter to shout and carry on all night long.
Another thing about Amtrak is that you see the ass end of America out the windows. Rusted out factories, the poorest quarter of every town, all kinds of garbage, and junkyards full to bursting with empty shells that used to be mobile homes.
During my layover in Chicago, I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt that read, "January 1995: IBM OS/2 Fiesta Bowl" which I thought was pretty funny. I also thought it was pretty funny when I heard a media critic say, "Bias? I don't need to pay for it."
Last but not least, new book meme entries are up at This Dark Qualm, funferal, and Bionic Octopus. I seem to recall that Safety Neal said he was going to do an entry, but it hasn't made it up yet.
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1 For reasons I can't fathom, the menu doesn't have an americano on it. So if you order one they charge you for a super-duper latte. It blows.
Blogging, both here and Bellmanwards, will probably be light for awhile. I can't abide dial-up, and haven't yet been able to reliably find time to hang out in wireless hotspots. Also, the best wireless access point in my pops' neighborhood is a Panera Bread franchise which charges nearly $4 for an americano.[1]
In Zwichenzug Culture Watch news, Grind is not nearly as good a skateboard movie as Lords of Dogtown. It's not even as good as a bootleg copy of The Search for Animal Chin with messed up sound. On the other hand, The Third Man is funnier than you'd expect and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, while terrible, isn't as bad as its reviews. Also, I'm not sure how I managed to avoid hearing it all these years, but Solo Monk is a great record with a sound I haven't heard from Monk before.
I like Amtrak well enough, but the delays can get to you. My train rolled into San Antonio at about 11 pm Thursday, just as the Spurs were winning the NBA championship at the arena next to the train station. My connection was supposed to leave the station at 1 am Friday, but didn't arrive until nearly 8 am, and then didn't leave the station for another two hours. The upshot was that I sort of slept on a wooden bench in the train station, which would have been fine except that one woman decided that she didn't want to sleep in the train station and stayed awake by encouraging her three year old daughter to shout and carry on all night long.
Another thing about Amtrak is that you see the ass end of America out the windows. Rusted out factories, the poorest quarter of every town, all kinds of garbage, and junkyards full to bursting with empty shells that used to be mobile homes.
During my layover in Chicago, I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt that read, "January 1995: IBM OS/2 Fiesta Bowl" which I thought was pretty funny. I also thought it was pretty funny when I heard a media critic say, "Bias? I don't need to pay for it."
Last but not least, new book meme entries are up at This Dark Qualm, funferal, and Bionic Octopus. I seem to recall that Safety Neal said he was going to do an entry, but it hasn't made it up yet.
__________
1 For reasons I can't fathom, the menu doesn't have an americano on it. So if you order one they charge you for a super-duper latte. It blows.
